“...from the accession to the throne of Alexander I in 1801, the Russian government engaged in provocative activity: it would give society just as much freedom as was necessary to evoke a first response, and then collar and punish the simpletons who responded incautiously.
Although the weakness or inflexibility of the later Romanov tsars was a contributory factor to Russia’s difficulties, it must be admitted that the problems they faced were immense. The sheer size and multi-ethnic nature of the empire made it difficult to govern, although the policy of ‘Official Nationality’ pursued by Alexander III and Nicholas II alienated unnecessarily many peoples on the periphery - Finns, Ukrainians, Poles etc. Not even the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 could improve the social and economic situation of the peasantry. Russian industry was still under-developed in the second half of the nineteenth century. Witte’s attempts at rapid, government-inspired modernization carried with them the threat of political upheaval in so far as they created for the first time in Russian history a sizeable bourgeoisie and urban proletariat.
The Russian tsars also faced the problem of a tradition of violent revolutionary activity, which arguably dated back to the Decembrist
conspìracy of 1825. Alexander II had been assassinated by members of the ‘Narodnaya Volya’, and this reinforced the reactionary policies of his successors. Marxists, Social Revolutionaries, Nihilists, Anarchists and others were all committed at various times to the overthrow of Tsarism. It would probably also be fair to say that the policies of the Tsars actually increased
and inflamed this revolutionary threat, and by 1914 the support base for the Romanov dynasty was dangerously narrow and decreasing alarmingly.
Even amongst those groups upon whom the Tsars were traditionally dependent, support appears to have been declining. The Middle Classes were increasingly disenchanted by their lack of influence in political life, and there was growing support for a constitution among the educated liberal classes. In resisting all demands for political reform, the Tsars alienated this potentially influential group. The 1905 Revolution had demonstrated clearly the vulnerability and instability of the Tsarist regime. The October Manifesto appeared to set Russia on the road towards a constitutional monarchy, but Nicholas II consistently tried to weaken the powers of the Duma (eg through the Fundamental Laws). Such attempts to restore autocracy can only have isolated the Tsarist regime further.
Although the Tsarist regime was able to weather the immediate crisis of the 1905 Revolution, events such as Bloody Sunday had done much to undermine Nicholas’ personal popularity. It could also be argued that Lenin and Trotsky learned the lessons of 1905 more effectively than the Tsarist government. Underlying grievances and tensions remained unresolved. The period 1905-1914 saw a continuation of industrial unrest. Strikes in Saint Petersburg were becoming more frequent in the months leading up to the First World War. Indeed, it is possible that the Tsar and his advisers hoped that the surge of patriotism accompanying the war might deflect people’s attentions from the deteriorating economic situation, thus repeating the mistake of the Russo-Japanese War.
Thus the Tsarist regime faced major challenges to its very existence in 1914. What eventually destroyed it, however, were the disasters and humiliating defeats of the First World War. Quite clearly the Imperial Russian Government was unable to cope with the political, social, economic and military demands of a modern war. Some historians (eg - Hugh Seton-Watson) have lamented the fact that the war prevented Russia from developing into a liberal, Western European style state. Such arguments ignore the fact that most of the Tsars preferred to resist, or at the very least delay, such political changes. Besides, it is clear that the Russian Empire was inherently backward and unstable, and peaceful, evolutionary development was unlikely. Tsarism had faced many previous challenges to its existence, and it is quite possible that it might have succumbed to another crisis even without the experience of defeat in war.